Shades of the Past_ Book Six of the Morcyth Saga - Brian S. Pratt [157]
Behind him, he hears Jiron get to his feet. A brief glance back shows him that Jiron has his remaining knife in hand and is preparing to sell his life dearly. Tuning back, he throws a confining barrier around the hell hound while at the same time lashing out with another wave of force to push the cowled figure backward.
“Jiron, get me out of here if I fall,” he says.
“Do the best I can,” he replies. Though how effective he will be with a numb arm and a chest that’s throbbing horrendously with pain, he’s not sure.
The hell hound fights the barrier. James has to funnel more of his reserves to simply maintain the barrier while he deals with the undead creature before him. Behind the approaching creature, the oil continues to spill forth from the broken brazier, creating an ever widening area of flame.
Lashing out again with a blast of force, he knocks the creature backward into the pool of flame. The fire instantly ignites the creature’s robes. Their heads are again hit by the mind tearing scream as the fire consumes the creature, which almost causes the barrier surrounding the hell hound to fail. Falling over into the pool of fire, the creature thrashes around for a moment before lying still.
When the scream tearing through his brain stops, James is again able to focus his attention back to the hell hound and the barrier encasing it. As he’s done several times before, he turns the barrier cold and begins to shrink it in upon the creature.
Struggle as it will, the barrier continues to shrink until the creature’s struggles cease and all resistance to the closing of the barrier vanishes. With a pop, the barrier implodes completely.
James sags and almost falls to the floor before Jiron catches him with one hand. On the verge of passing out he says, “Help me up. We have to get out of here.”
As he helps James to his feet, he glances over at what’s left of the two bodies burning in the pool of fire on the floor. “What were those things?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” he replies. The memory of the warrior priest that he slammed with his magic before they came here is very much on his mind. Why he hasn’t made an appearance yet baffles him. “You remember the way out?”
“Yeah,” replies Jiron. “Let’s go.” He puts James’ arm around his shoulder for support before moving toward the double doors they had passed through during their previous visit. Kicking one of the doors open, he and James pass through to the corridor on the other side. James’ orb springs to life as they leave the light of the braziers behind them.
Turning down to the right, they walk quickly. Coming to the end they arrive at another corridor that runs perpendicular to theirs. Without hesitation they turn and follow it to the right. They soon come to the winding flight of stairs leading down.
On their previous visit, they had come up this way after crawling through a drainage pipe found in the side of the mountain. At the time they were being pursued by soldiers of the Empire and were just looking for a place to hide.
“Not that way,” says James as they come to the stairs. “Better leave the same way as last time.”
Jiron nods at that and continues down the corridor. They pass by another corridor extending into darkness on their right and shortly after that arrive at a small room. Standing in the room are two pedestals, upon each sits a statue of a demonic creature. They give them but a cursory glance as they pass through the room to the corridor on the right. Hurrying along, they pass three more corridors branching off to the right before entering the room at the end. So far there has been no telltale indication that the warrior priest has appeared on the dais.
Just as they remembered, they find the stairway leading to the room above them. The only exit from the room is an opening in the right wall where a corridor begins. At the top, James pauses and says, “Let’s rest a moment.